


Furby

by kaulayau



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, Family Drama, Family Feels, Gen, I once had a furby that woke up at midnight and just started talking unprompted, I’m living in a golden age of media yo, Revenge, game of thrones is a bop and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is straight fire, how lucky we are to be alive right now!, yeah Vanya kills all her siblings, “Ironside” by Quincy Jones blares from ten-foot speakers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-02-10 16:37:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18664219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaulayau/pseuds/kaulayau
Summary: They will all say that they love Vanya. Leonard said he loved her. Her father loved her, too. Once she proved useful to them — or once she proved a threat — they learned to keep her close. They learned that she held their lies like life.Vanya was alone. She was alone for so long, and her siblings were idle. They were all there to watch. She hopes they enjoyed the show.She loves them, too.border border borderVanya seeks reparation.





	1. Beanie Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: all my titles have hidden meanings behind them that represent the themes and tone of the story I’m telling ye ye ye 
> 
> also me: Furb

The neon sign outside is flickering. There are cars and trucks, and crosswalk indicators, and street lamps, but it seems — glowing purple and yellow and pink — that the neon sign is the only light for miles. “I knew you would be here.” The floor is sticky. Vanya puts her violin case down on it.

She sits at the bar and asks the red-eyed waitress for a coffee with cream. Numbly, the waitress nods.

The diner is empty. The air conditioning switches off.

Five’s looking at their reflections through the service bell. “Where else would I be?” he asks.

He has his own mug. Black with sugar. The packets are open. He has a plate scattered with crumbs, a bent fork, and a dinner knife.

“You were never picky,” Vanya says. The waitress returns. Vanya digs through her purse and hands her a fifty-dollar tip. The waitress eyes it, holds it to the light, and pockets it carefully. “I narrowed it down.”

“Hmm.” Five taps his fingers on the counter, in succession. “Who’s next on your list?”

“Diego,” Vanya tells him. “I’ll wait until tomorrow comes.” Five stops moving. The other chairs in the diner have already been turned upside-down. “You would sneak out here every couple of weeks.” For once, he doesn’t respond. “You and the others.” The jukebox plays soft music: a crooner’s song, something from the forties. “You wouldn’t tell me when you’d go, but you’d always get me something nice.” Vanya stares ahead of her, at the doughnuts on display. At the muffins and cookies and scones. Every day she’d wait for Five to come home. Every day she was disappointed. “Why did you let them kill me?”

When he came back, eventually, Five was disappointed, too.

Vanya has never been claustrophobic.

Five pushes his plate away. “They didn’t,” he says — measured — thinking about it.

“They would have,” she says. “ _You_ would have.” There’s a window on the door to the employee break room. The waitress is smoking half a joint. “Anything for the world.”

She won’t say she doesn’t understand.

Five gulps. “I didn’t know it was going to be you.”

“If you did?” The waitress is waving out her cigarettes. She checks her apron and lights another.

Vanya knows how Five would reply.

But he doesn’t turn in that direction. “We never took anything from you.”

“You’re right. There was nothing worth taking.”

There is a clock on two different walls. They tick out of sync with each other.

Vanya and Five drink their coffee.

“I loved you,” he tells her, “you know.” There are pictures, hanging up in the kitchen area, of children. Workers’ children. The owners’ children. “I think I loved you the most.” There is a rusted hot chocolate machine, and the health department’s old documentation, and newly-stocked napkin dispensers. “Not in an Allison-Luther way. Nothing like that.” He puts his mug down. “I couldn’t find your body in the apocalypse. There’s was nothing to go off of, but. I looked for you, anyway. I thought you’d be the one to last it out of anyone.”

The crooner’s song changes key. Vanya breathes.

“I’m not here,” she says, “for your love.”

She didn’t meet the requirements soon enough.

“I know,” Five says. He stands and adjusts his tie. He brushes himself off like preparation. “So we’re doing this.”

Vanya hears a twinge in his voice.

She rings the service bell and gets out of her seat. The bell sings a high _G_.

They don’t delay.

Five grabs his dinner knife and makes a jump. Vanya ducks. Forks, utensils — she throws them. They lodge into the wall. She tries again. Another wall. Another attempt. The clocks shake and topple. The room swirls. Vanya aims all the chairs. All the tables. The displays. He’s fast. She grabs him, the whole room blue, but he twists away. Five shouts her name. She fights him with weight of the air. He stumbles. There’s broken glass. Muffled sound. Over and over. Again and again. Five catches her — he stabs her shoulder. Vanya cries out. She throws him against the jukebox. The music sputters and dies. Five jumps again — he’s taken a napkin dispenser. Metal. It collides with Vanya’s head. She recoils, but doesn’t go down. He’s hesitant. He attempts escape, but can’t get past.

Vanya takes him.

Vanya snaps his neck.

He gasps.

She watches him hit the ground.

Five crumples.

Slowly, Vanya kneels.

His eyes are open.

She closes them with her hand. 

The waitress is gaping. Vanya gives her another ten dollars. 

She takes her violin case, and she leaves. 

* * *

Allison Hargreeves is dead. Here is her grave, larger than the rest, as pale as sand, and covered in flowers. Covered in unlit candles and thank-you notes and clipped photographs. A bird is perched on the headstone — it waits, then flies away. _Mother, sister, friend,_ reads the headstone, engraved. _A star to outshine the ages. A soul to forever touch the world._

Vanya Hargreeves killed her.

They will all say that they love Vanya. Leonard said he loved her. Her father loved her, too. Once she proved useful to them — or once she proved a threat — they learned to keep her close. They learned that she held their lies like life.

Vanya was alone. She was alone for so long, and her siblings were idle. They were all there to watch. She hopes they enjoyed the show.

Did they always know? They kept her locked away. They gave up on her. They resented her. They rejected her.

She loves them, too.

At least Allison tried — but trying only goes so far. What has more weight? The attempt, or the outcome? Who takes the blame? Who gives it? Who makes that decision? The answer is always empty. The judgement never lasts.

How much of her has been drowned?

The damage has already been done.

If there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s this:

There is no returning from the finite. What comes will come. What does not will stay behind.


	2. Hot Wheels

Sirens, wailing red and blue. The sun hangs halfway, covered by clouds. Dew settles densely on the pavement. There is almost a mist. Men and women with badges investigate the scene — they pace, and squint, and ask. First responders amble in pairs. A group of children gathers by the yellow police tape — they are scolded and whisked away. A red-eyed waitress is being interrogated at the curb. She sobs into her fists. She will not remember what she saw.

This is a trail only Diego will follow.

Vanya arrives at the east dock downtown. Abandoned buildings shroud three sides. Graffiti covers the brick. It is vulgar. The el train passes nearby, making the water and mortar tremble.

He meets her.

His dagger pins her.

The building groans and cracks. She wrenches away from the wall. Vanya lifts herself up — the ground leaves from under her feet and erupts — every structure breaks apart. The fight is unmatched. Vanya lands to level it  — Diego’s dagger slices through her leg like a bullet. It flies. She dodges it. It nicks past her arm. Her abdomen. Her waist. A repeat. His hits are far from fatal.

The train roars proud above them. It prods and shatters. The sound stings through her — then Diego’s knife greets Vanya’s flesh. Her own blood flicks her face.

He tackles her into the water.

They sink, and rise again.

Diego shifts the water. He is the Kraken, come to life. There is a torrent — a blade from sea rushes towards her. All noise is drenched and heavy. She kicks. The smother does not free her. Diego is relentless. But Vanya won’t hold back anymore.

She overpowers him. She listens to the rush of the current.

Vanya strikes.

They’re back on the dock.

There is a dagger in Diego’s chest. He crumples onto the ground. There are tears in his armored clothing. He looks up at Vanya, shivering.

The el train completes its course. It settles off in silence.

She wonders if he is afraid.

“We were never really that close, were we?” says Diego. “But do you remember? When we were twelve. And I came home —” he points at himself like a fact — “just like this.” The concrete is smeared in streaks of red. So are Vanya’s hands. “You cried. You thought I was dead, and you cried.” The sky leaves a shadow. Rain might come in an hour. “We played chess, yeah? While I was — in recovery. Everyone else would be out and training and fucking up, and one wanted to look at me. They — didn’t want to think it could be them. You were the only one that wanted to stay with me. ” A ripple grows through the water. “And we played chess. I could never beat you — but I got close.” The cold gathers around them, a coat. “You left that out. Out of your book. Why’d you do that?” She didn’t want to give too much of it away. “Vanya. What about Pogo? What about — what about Mom?”

After Diego got better, they stopped playing chess. “They did what they had to.” Or what they thought it was.

“What about Allison?” he asks. “Goddammit, what about _Five?_ Five, he —”

“So did they,” she says. “They wanted me gone.” And they succeeded.

“Vanya, it — they were your family. They _care_ about you. Allison was your sister. Five was your _brother._ ”

Why did they stop her, then? Why did they leave her for dead? It holds a value, yes — they’d be stupid not to see it — but what difference does it make? They’ve ended almost entirely. What held them together once no longer has the strength. It remains, and will always remain. But she knows it has it weakened as they did.

Vanya approaches slowly. She crouches down in front of Diego, to reach him.

“You’re my brother, too.”

That doesn’t make it even. It doesn’t measure.

Diego shakes his head.

He seems to search her face. Then he cups it in his hand, brushing her cheek with his thumb —

Vanya doesn’t flinch.

“God,” he says. “God, what did we do to you?” It’s not something he can count. And neither of them can comprehend it. “What could have happened? What if we never left, or — what if — oh, God. Don’t — don’t you wish we could have known?” Knowing brought them here. “We didn’t get to choose. _You_ didn’t get to choose.” It’s something they carry. “It’s — not your fault.” It’s not a matter of fault, or right, or wrong. “I’m sorry, Vanya.”

Sincerity comes at the close, she supposes.

“I forgive you.” She means it.

Diego touches their foreheads together.

Vanya pulls the dagger. She catches him.

* * *

She isn’t bloodthirsty, and she isn’t hungry for power. That is not her reason. She is past the point of prestige, or recognition, or order, or respect. Vanya has never wanted those things. Retribution takes a crooked path.

What did they think they’d be doing all their lives? They don’t have a destiny. They don’t even have luck, or chance, or place.

Vanya isn’t empty. She is just as she has always been. So are they, she thinks. And they went on.

* * *

The corner store at the gas station is open until midnight. She enters, taking her violin case with her. The twitching, slack-jawed boy at the register blinks at her — then directs her, shakily, towards the bathrooms. Vanya finds a pack of bandages on the way and grabs it.

The women’s restroom has no stalls. Vanya leaves her case by the door.

It looks as if the mirror has been recently replaced. There’s a cut over her lip. She thinks she might have bitten her tongue, too — the taste is tangy. A print of blood climbs down from the corner of her eye. A fingerprint. It continues under her nails. Her hair drips, mixed and drying.

She takes a paper towel and wipes off her skin.

Her blouse is more soaked than anything — it will last. She’ll just have to wait.

Vanya rolls up her sleeves and assesses her injuries. They’re more scars than anything. She redresses them anyway, and washes her hands with liquid soap.

She steadies herself.

She drags her case behind her. It’s sturdy enough, and she needs a new one anyway. This case has lasted since she was fifteen.

In the corner store, there is an aisle for milk. An aisle for magnets. An aisle for trinkets. An aisle for readymade meals, and an aisle for pocket-sized products. Vanya finds the aisle for snacks. There’s an endless array. She picks a bag with a wide assortment of candy. Everything in it is wrapped in white, labeled plastic.

Vanya pays for the candy, and the box of bandages. She tells the boy at the register to keep the change.  


	3. Nerf

A fence with silver arrows poking through the air. Shiny paint that smells fresh — workers came to fix it up the fence this morning. A big tree with no leaves. Her family behind her. The road over here, on the other side.

Number Seven’s hands feel soft and slippery and warm. Soupy. They’re a different color, at least a little. Shiny and grey-ish. If she gets it on her dress, she’ll have to take a bath. But she likes the splotch. She makes little swirls with her fingers. She traces the _M_ on her right hand. She makes patterns and shapes.

Someone says her name. Number Seven turns around, but she isn’t sure who it was.

* * *

The tenements here are abandoned, yellowing city papers still posted to their boarded windows. “I hurt you a lot,” says Klaus. “Maybe not the way they did.” He considers it. “I just never helped you. I didn’t have the brains to disagree with anyone else. You know? And I would have followed through on trying to bring it all down.” She sits by him on the welcome mat. It is stained. “Doing nothing really gets you nowhere. You don’t end up giving any good.”

“There might be some.” She won’t deny the good. That undoes everything she’s aiming for.

Vanya gives Klaus the bag of candy. He takes it, tears it open, and unwraps a piece. Klaus pauses first — and eats it. He digs for more. He pours the candy into his hands. Persistently, he offers one to Vanya, and she accepts. The candy has a watermelon flavor.

“Where’d you get this gift from God?” says Klaus.

“The gas station,” she tells him.

He nods. “You can never go wrong with the gas station.” Klaus empties the bag and digs in. The wrappers gather on the muddled ground. “We weren’t gas station kids. We were diner kids. But gas stations have cigarettes.”

“You’ll get a stomach ache,” Vanya tells him. And he shrugs. Light from a wandering car echoes past once — then the world settles again into a hesitant darkness. A cold, fluorescent glow covers her skin, and she hears the alley mumble. And Vanya wants to know. “Are they here?”

There is no other option. “Yeah.”

“What are they telling you?” she asks.

“What they usually would,” he says. “For one thing, there’s, ‘Take a shower, Klaus.’ And, ‘There are no showers, but you can find one.’ And even better, ‘Get your fucking act together, Klaus.’ It all gets bounced around.” He rummages through the empty bag. “They tell me to run. To book a trip to Belize. Go hide until it’s over, and maybe I’ll last it a year or two.”

It won’t be over. “Why aren’t you listening to them?”

“It wouldn’t be very fair.” Her puts the bag on the ground and flattens it. “And we’re all about fairness here. We’re all about perfect symmetry.” There are three candies left.

“Are they angry?”

“At you?” says Klaus. “No. Never.” He has nothing to gain. “I don’t have a reason to lie. I won’t find much pleasure there.” He speaks almost in a meter.

A cockroach scuttles. The ancient hum of an generator joins the refrain. The hush of a sparse few crickets blink a structured harmony.

“Is Allison here?”

Klaus rolls up the bag of candy. The last piece lies in the dirt. “She’s got business elsewhere.” Vanya thought so. “I wish _our_ moms haunted us as kids. Claire doesn’t know what she’s getting.”

“She’ll never know,” says Vanya.

“Nor will our merry band.” Klaus rubs his nose with his wrist. “I like your hair.”

“It’s not any different.”

“And I like it,” Klaus says. “That’s not any different, either.” He pauses. “Once I’m gone, they’re gone, too.”

“Is that how it works?”

There is only sound. “Well. I don’t actually know. We’re speculating.”

“Then what will happen?” She’s curious.

“Nothing, probably. Absolutely nothing. But wouldn’t it be so romantic if it did? So dramatic?”

She supposes it would. That’s what the Hargreeves are for. “What are they saying now?”

“They’re sitting around,” Klaus says. “They’re just here to listen, I guess. We’re only missing two.” Vanya hugs her knees to her chest. She imagines it simply: herself. Klaus. Ben beside him. Five beside her. Diego, leaning at the doorpost. Maybe they’re younger. They must want to be, certainly. But that can’t be reclaimed. They all crawled the fork in the road. “Hey. What’s going to happen to you afterwards?” She isn’t sure what he means. “What are you going to do? We always have to make sure you’re okay. You wear your shirt backwards sometimes. We have to remind you to drink water.” And he’d take all her things from her drawers. “But I guess we’re all grown-ups now.” He sighs. “Someone’s waiting for me. So it’s not so bad.”

She asks him, “Who?”

He waves her away. “No one you know. But you might have liked him, if we were luckier.” He smiles. His face is gaunt and pale. “Don’t try to meet him soon. Or anyone else.” A lone street light blinks awake. There is a stop sign across the street. The road is converted in potholes. “When it’s over, are you going to eat me?” He tilts his head. “Guess I wouldn’t taste very nice.”

They rise.


	4. A Box

It’s dusty enough to cough. Luther stands beside her. There is something in his hand, but she cannot see it.

“We always end up back here,” he says, guarded and tensed. “We could have been anywhere else in the world. And here we are again.”

She knew where to look for him — just like the others. “You could say it’s magnetic.” Vanya props her violin case upright against her hip. “Anywhere else in the world,” she repeats. “Where would you go?” She means it genuinely, though Luther might disagree.

And he answers. “Not here,” he says. It’s too easy a reply. “Or maybe I would come back here. I’d just be — lost anywhere else.”

“Not even — the city,” says Vanya. “Not even Rome, or — Budapest. Singapore. Egypt.” She guesses that nothing will overthrow the Moon.

“Is that where you’d go?” Not likely. The world is has gotten smaller. “If I went there, I wouldn’t be sure what to do.” They don’t have the luxury of foresight. But if they did, they might not have had each other. What’s the trade-off?

Luther pauses, as if to gather himself. “I… our — sister, she —”

Not in an Allison-Luther way. Nothing like that.

“When you see her,” Vanya says, “you can ask her anything you’d like.” That’s what sisters are for.

The ruins of the Academy lies before them. What if this part of the rubble was the staircase? What if this was the kitchen table, or the closed-off rooms on the second floor? There are footprints in the toppled soil. She thinks she recognizes the splintered furniture or crinkled photo-frames. In front of her is the singed cover of an Umbrella Academy comic book.

It’s all just a specter.

Yes. They didn’t get to choose.

But their draw was a lucky one.

“Why wasn’t I first?” Luther asks. “I started it. You should have gone for me. Not them. They didn’t —” he seems to collect himself. “Just me. All you had to do was —” he doesn’t go on. “Vanya.”

Klaus talked about fairness.

She was never really a part of them. Either she goes away, or they do. Vanya is an obstacle to their unity.

If she fell asleep in the living room, or waiting for Five to come back to them, or out in the yard — Luther would carry her back to her room. And then, later down the line, he buried her alive, and no one gave the effort to stop him. Not even Vanya.

In his hand is jagged debris. He turns, and raises his fist. Once he sways his arm towards her, targeting her head. The motion is desperate and angry  — slowed by the friction. Once again. A weapon of choice. He cannot hit her.

Then waveringly, he drops his arms to his sides.  

She kills him.

He falls just like the others.

* * *

Vanya is seventeen. She goes to the rickety department store — their father doesn’t notice much anymore when she slips out, and no one has followed through on revealing her — and counts the check-out lines. One to twenty-four. Vanya is the only patron.

Aisle A32: Luggage. A green one. A blue one, twice the size of the last. One that spins. One with four different handles. One with dinosaur embroidery. One that costs two hundred dollars.

Vanya won’t take that one, for sure. Which is the cheapest? None of the above. She chooses the one that spins — it’s seventy bucks, plus tax. She has seventy-five in her wallet.

What does that give her? Three dollars? What can she get? Here is a keychain shaped like a cat. Here is a freezer full of cheap ice cream. Here is a pack of generic-brand chapstick. Maybe she can take something from the bargain bin, or the travel-size shampoo.

She saves the money and pays in cash. Vanya will need extra for the bus fare.

Back home — what’s to pack? She figured that her violin wouldn’t fit in her suitcase. That’s a given. She doesn’t have a lot of clothing — it’s all the same, anyway. She has posters and books she wants to keep, but maybe they’re a waste of space.

“What are you doing?” Allison says. And with her is Luther, Diego, and Klaus.

“I’m leaving,” Vanya says. They know this already.

She sits down on her bed.

“Did you buy that suitcase?” Allison asks. “You could have asked me for mine. Or Klaus’s, or Diego’s.”

“Mine is better than that one,” offers Luther.  

Vanya shakes her head. “Those are _your_ suitcases,” she says. When the others went on faraway missions, she would stay at the Academy with Pogo and Grace.

“Where,” says Klaus, “where are you going to stay? What about food? That’s important.”

She stands. “I made some arrangements.”

He makes a confused noise. “How’d you get the money? You could have taken some of mine.”

Vanya brushes herself off. “A lot of kids want to learn the violin,” she tells them, “And their parents don’t want to pay a lot.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Aren’t you scared,” says Diego, “that something will happen to you?”

“There’s always that,” she says. “Something — something’s always out there.” She tries putting levity in it, but it sounds more like a wince. She hugs her arms around her waist.

Vanya hadn’t planned the confrontation. Now she wonders how spontaneous this decision was.

No. It wasn’t spontaneous in the least.

“And you’re not coming back,” says Luther. What does he think? What do they all think? Five won’t come back — he ran away. And it’s too late for Ben. “We’ll help you pack.”

They clear out her closet and order her shoes. They sort out her chapter books and urtext sheet music — yes, she’ll keep this — no, this one’s too old and beaten to bring with her. Diego folds her shirts, and Allison makes sure she has enough underwear and hair-ties. Luther fits everything in the pockets. Klaus pokes around her belongings. They let her wait.

Why — just.

What’s wrong with them? What’s wrong with all of them? Why aren’t they saying what they should be saying? Why aren’t they begging her to say? They should be crying, shouting, and bickering. Today should be bitter and hostile. There should be animosity from all sides of the house — they should be _furious_ at her. _Livid_. Mad, mad, mad. They shouldn’t want her to leave. They are packing her bags for her. Aren’t they going to miss her? Don’t they _want_ her with them? “I’ll miss you, Vanya,” is all they have to say. “We’ll miss you, Vanya. Don’t leave us, Vanya. We need you here. You’re one of us. Vanya, don’t go. What will Dad think? What about _us?_ Us, us, we’re a family. Think about us. We’ll miss you so much. Don’t go, Vanya. Vanya, please, please, stay, Vanya.” That’s all she needs to hear.

Don’t they care? Seventeen years, they’ve known each other. Their whole lives. Wasn’t that enough?

And they’re helping her pack. It would go faster that way.

God, they must be relieved. They might not believe themselves, but they are relieved.

“Do you still use this?” asks Diego, holding something small — a hairbrush.

“No,” she says. She didn’t remember that she had that.

When they’re done, they walk her to the bus stop. She goes away.

* * *

She returns to Allison’s white headstone. The rain had already passed, and new flowers have been planted since she came here last. The scent is sweet and artificial.

The world doesn’t need an Umbrella Academy. It already has itself.

She’s tired. 

Vanya lowers herself and lies face-down in the grass over her sister’s grave.

“Allison,” she says. And they know what the truth is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for reading. journey journey journey
> 
> [here is my Tumblr and as an extension my art-house memes.](https://kaulayau.tumblr.com)
> 
> [and here’s my umbrella-academy Discord Server’s join link that’ll only last for a little while! Come say hi and ask for an egg roll](https://discord.gg/muPgAGv)
> 
> Have a good one. <3


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